School Master (1959)

B. R. Panthulu, a leading producer-director of South Indian cinema, made School Master first in Kannada in 1958 and then remade it in several languages, including this Hindi version. The story follows an idealistic headmaster who transforms a neglected school and community through honesty and hard work, and then, after retirement, faces the indifference of the children he and his wife sacrificed for. The theme of ageing parents abandoned by their sons made it one of the most widely remade South Indian stories of its time, a forerunner of later Hindi family dramas on the same subject. The Hindi cast includes Karan Dewan and a young B. Saroja Devi, who was then becoming a major star in the South.